Public Company News

Trading of Volt’s USD$15m worth of loan notes for its Tanzanian graphite play could commence on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius as soon as Feb 20th. The company also has an option of raising another USD$15m by way of a private note placement on the SEM, with both funding sources to be potentially made available to start building the plant and infrastructure for its multi-generational, Bunyu graphite development that shows a whopping pre-tax NPV of US$1.31b.

Buru Energy was sitting on a $32.4m pile of cash at the end of 2019 with $5.4m worth of oil net production cash flow still expected in the current quarter, representing a three-fold increase on the previous two quarters. The forecast is due to the favourable timing of oil liftings out of the port of Wyndham and the recent successful development drilling at its Ungani oil field in WA’s Canning Basin.

K2fly has added another significant resource company to its rapidly growing, blue chip client list after West Australian miner, Gold Fields Ltd, signed on for a multi-year deal to use K2fly’s innovative software package known as “RCubed”. The contract is worth in excess of $580,000 across the initial five years and comes on the back of a total of $1.67m worth of record invoicing in the December 2019 quarter.

Legend Mining has discovered an EM conductor lurking within shouting distance of its impressive recently announced nickel/copper/cobalt drill hole at the Mawson prospect in the Fraser Range. The latest exploration work at Mawson unearthed over 70 meters of sulphide mineralisation, including 14.9 meters with solid nickel-copper-cobalt grades. A newly modelled “off-hole” electromagnetic anomaly that points to a possible extension of the mineralised zone will now be targeted.

A Federal Government co-funding grant from the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre of up to $185,000 has been awarded to Lithium Australia’s subsidiary, VSPC, to assist in developing its lithium battery recycling capabilities. VSPC takes spent lithium-ion battery metals and/or mine waste and produces lithium-iron-phosphate metal oxides that can be commercialised in the rapidly growing environmentally friendly renewables space.

Neometals has confirmed the technical feasibility of its Barrambie titanium-vanadium deposit located in the Murchison region of WA following successful metallurgical pilot test work. The work, that was aimed at optimising hydrometallurgical recoveries, produced a high purity “titanium hydrolysate” from the titanium processing phase. The company has now shipped samples of its new titanium bearing concentrate to potential offtake customers to evaluate.

Black Rock Mining is a step closer to developing its mammoth Tanzanian graphite mine, inking a framework agreement with a Chinese firm to act as head EPC contractor. A deferred payment schedule will result in over 30% of the contract being paid only after the plant passes certain performance hurdles. The agreement is with Chinese Government-owned China Railway Seventh Group Co.

Mid-tier, ASX-listed gold developer, Horizon Minerals, is continuing to scrub up its Boorara gold project with exciting pockets of high-grade ore just 10km east of the Kalgoorlie super-pit. After 18 kilometres of infill drilling, some excellent assays from parallel mineralized lodes have been identified at the Regal and Crown Jewel deposits with individual assay grades as high as 12.62 grams per tonne gold.

Big River Gold is looking to lock down a finance package for its 100%-owned Borborema gold Project in Brazil that boasts a 2.43 million-ounce resource and a reserve of 780,000 ounces at a grade of 1.22 grams per tonne gold. The project is showing an initial projected mine life of ten years and solid economics at a gold price of US$1,400/oz.

Dual-listed Adriatic Metals was always going to have a problem at its Vares multi-metals project in Bosnia – but it is a nice problem to have. With such a smorgasbord of different high-grade minerals present at Vares, Adriatic’s biggest problem is working out which metals will lead the project economics, which will be mere credits and which ones will gel together well metallurgically to produce highly payable concentrates.

King River Resources’ plans to push its giant Speewah vanadium-titanium-iron deposit in Western Australia towards a definitive feasibility study have taken a strategic change of direction. The company is now firmly focusing on the opportunity around the aluminium oxide that is also contained within the deposit. Test work is pointing towards a small-scale start-up operation with a view to creating early cash flows from converting the aluminium oxide to high purity alumina.

Drilling at Ora Banda Mining’s Davyhurst gold project in WA has provided a substantial boost to the company’s confidence in its Waihi deposits with new assays showing a haul of impressive results including a 34-metre intercept grading 3.8 grams per tonne gold from just 30m. After a difficult period under previous management, Davyhurst looks to be on a solid footing now. A resource update is expected soon.